Jason Dunnhttp://www.jasondunn.com
a canadian geek dad living in the USA sharing thoughts on personal finance, technology, photography, parenting, and other random thingsSat, 08 Dec 2018 18:03:49 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.11147702Object Collection: Blank 3.5″ Floppy Diskhttp://www.jasondunn.com/object-collection-blank-3-5-floppy-disk/
http://www.jasondunn.com/object-collection-blank-3-5-floppy-disk/#respondThu, 06 Dec 2018 01:51:39 +0000http://www.jasondunn.com/?p=6189Continue reading Object Collection: Blank 3.5″ Floppy Disk]]>It’s been nine years (wow!) since I last contributed something to my Object Collection project, so this is a fun one. I was scanning photos and documents for my 20 year college reunion (which I flew back to Calgary for in October) and among my keepsakes was a 3.5″ floppy disk I used for school projects. I thought it would be fun to remind my classmates about our reliance upon the humble floppy disk in 1998 – and boy did we ever rely on it! I remember more than one student who kept using the same disk from the year before, and when it died and they lost their work they were shocked (I preached the gospel of backups even back then, but no one thinks it will ever happen to them…).

I scanned a 6 megapixel version of the disk, but it had writing on the label. I spent a couple of minutes in Photoshop CC trying to remove the writing but quickly realized it would take me at least 20 minutes of work to get it cleaned up, and I wasn’t confident I could do that good of a job. Here’s what the original looked like – it also had a nasty shadow up top I knew would be a pain to fix.

I’d mentioned Fivver to some friends yesterday, and I’d been curious about what using the service was like – so I found a guy named Tauseef Nasir in Pakistan who would edit one image for $5 and promised results in only one hour. This seemed almost too good to be true, so while I wasn’t exactly convinced I’d get an image that met my quality standards (hey, I have high standards) I thought I’d give it a try. One $6.50 PayPal payment later ($5 + service fees), I uploaded the 75 MB original PSD file with instructions of what I wanted, and waited. Exactly 47 minutes later, Tauseef sent me back a perfect edit. I could have spent an hour at it and likely not achieved a result this good.

Consider me impressed with not only his work, but Fivver as a platform in general! So here you have the first partially-outsourced entry into the Object Collection: an aged, perfectly blank-labelled 3.5″ floppy disk circa 1998.

]]>http://www.jasondunn.com/object-collection-blank-3-5-floppy-disk/feed/06189iPad Pro 2016 vs. iPad Pro 2018 iMovie 4K Render Test: FIGHT!http://www.jasondunn.com/ipad-pro-2016-vs-ipad-pro-2018-imovie-4k-render-test-fight/
http://www.jasondunn.com/ipad-pro-2016-vs-ipad-pro-2018-imovie-4k-render-test-fight/#respondFri, 30 Nov 2018 02:44:30 +0000http://www.jasondunn.com/?p=6001Continue reading iPad Pro 2016 vs. iPad Pro 2018 iMovie 4K Render Test: FIGHT!]]>If you saw any of the coverage of the 2018 iPad Pro launch, you couldn’t escape the way Apple talked up the performance of the 7nm A12X Bionic chip at the heart of their product. ArsTechnica has a great write up about the chip and what it’s capable of, the most interesting of which is that this is the first product Apple has ever released with their own chip that ran utilize all cores simultaneously. Naturally, after seeing the benchmarks where it had incredible performance numbers, I wanted to understand what the real-world results would be doing the most intensive thing I can do with my iPad: exporting 4K video. I was also involved in a conversation where another person claimed there was no speed difference in iMovie exports on the new iPad vs. the previous model.

That didn’t make much sense to me, so here’s what I did: I took four 4K GoPro clips, 2 minutes 18 seconds in total, and put them into iMovie on my old iPad and my new iPad (I don’t have a 10.5″ iPad Pro to test with). A filter was applied to each of the clips, and I added some simple text titles. I did exactly the same steps on both iPads in iMovie. I did four runs of the test, each time adding a single text element, doing the export, then removing it and doing the export again. Why? Even if you delete the exported video file, and purge deleted items from Photos, iMovie keeps an internal copy somewhere and immediately “finishes” the render when you start the export again. I had to alter the project to get a true re-render. The iPads were both running on battery power, and each was at about 80% battery level. Neither had any background tasks running purposefully, but I didn’t factory reset my 2016 iPad Pro to create a truly level playing field – so keep that in mind.

The results were interesting in three ways:

The 2016 iPad Pro was 23% 19% slower at exporting the 4K video compared to the 2018 iPad

The 2018 iPad Pro was extremely consistent, turning in the same time (2 minutes 24 seconds) on all four tests. No variation at all.

The 2016 iPad Pro was wildly inconsistent, doing it was quickly as 2 minutes 48 seconds, as long as 3 minutes 12 seconds, and once iMovie crashed.

A difference of 23% 19% adds up if you’re doing longer video projects; the A12X Bionic is a beast of a processor. However, 19% isn’t exactly a massive leap over two chip generations, so the real performance gains might appear elsewhere (as seen in Geekbench numbers).

I also bought LumaFusion for my iPad and did a simple 1080p edit – it worked wonderfully and the output was extremely quick. I can see why people like Jonathan Morrison are extremely excited about the iPad as a video editing tool – it really does open up a wealth of possibilities! Now if only Apple would give us access the iOS file system and let us use external storage devices…

]]>http://www.jasondunn.com/ipad-pro-2016-vs-ipad-pro-2018-imovie-4k-render-test-fight/feed/06001The 10 Reasons Why I Returned My Google Pixel 3 XL…and Five Things I’ll Miss About Ithttp://www.jasondunn.com/ten-reasons-why-returned-pixel3xl/
http://www.jasondunn.com/ten-reasons-why-returned-pixel3xl/#respondSat, 10 Nov 2018 03:23:52 +0000http://www.jasondunn.com/?p=5881Continue reading The 10 Reasons Why I Returned My Google Pixel 3 XL…and Five Things I’ll Miss About It]]>The short answer to why I decided to return my Pixel 3 XL? Insufficient value to me and too many compromises. If this was a $649 phone I’d have lower expectations for it, but in my opinion Google priced this too high for what they offered me as a buyer. They are at iPhone pricing without being an iPhone, and frankly that matters. If you’re going to charge me a thousand dollars for a phone (with tax), it had better be stellar!I’d saved and budgeted for this phone, so it’s not about putting it on a credit card and having buyer’s regret either – it’s about this phone not justifying its cost to me.

I can see why a lot of people will love this phone though, especially if they don’t own a dedicated digital camera. This phone has a great camera and for many people that will be the best reason to buy it. ?

For context it’s worth noting that for the past two years I’ve been using a OnePlus 3T, and my wife has had a OnePlus 6 since July (and a OnePlus 3 before that), so those three phones serve as comparison devices. If you’re wondering why we both haven’t been using HTC phones, well, that’s a whole different story that I’ll tell another day. ?

The Ten Reasons Why I Returned My Pixel 3 XL

Value: At $996.94 USD (with tax + shipping), this is the most ? expensive ?phone I’ve ever purchased. As such, it had a high bar to meet in terms of the value it needs to provide to me. Google did not make a $1000 product in my opinion.

Concerns about insufficient RAM: It’s shocking to see a $1000 Android phone with only 4 GB of RAM. Full stop. Most phones half the price have as much, if not more RAM (my phone has 6 GB of RAM and was $439). Several times I’ve been out driving with my Pixel 3 with Waze running for navigation, Google Play Music streaming Bluetooth audio, and the music would just stop. It didn’t happen every time, but often enough that it has me concerned. People reported issue with Spotify and the camera app (music would stop playing). Google is going to release a fix for this, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. And will 4 GB of RAM be enough to handle the next two versions of Android? I tend to keep my phones for two years. Google will obviously do everything they can to make future versions of Android working well with 4 GB, but when someone like MKBHD abandons the Pixel 2 because Google couldn’t keep it running smoothly after only a year, that concerns me a great deal. Android is a memory hog compared to iOS and it seems naive of Google to not put 6 GB of RAM in this.

I simply don’t use my smartphone camera as much as I’d like to think I do: as much as I loved the camera (see below), the reality is that I work from home most of the time, don’t travel as much as I used to, and already have cameras for every occasion (a Nikon D750 with a bunch of lenses, Sony RX-100 Mark IV, GoPro Hero 6, and an Olympus TG-5). So while the idea having the best smartphone camera on the planet is very appealing, Google is charging too much for me to justify it. My wife was the one who pointed this out to me – it’s always great to get another perspective! I get halfway decent photos from my OnePlus 3T, and I know whatever I pick next will much be better than that.

I’m less of a phone guy than I used to be: because I’m not on the go constantly, when I need to reach for a computing device during the day, quite often it’s my iPad. I leave my phone in my home office at night and carry the iPad with me and use it before bed and in the morning when I wake up. That made it easier to justify paying $995 USD ? for the 11″ 256GB iPad Pro that I know I’ll use frequently compared to nearly the same amount for a phone I’ll use less.

No hardware volume switch and volume granularity overkill: it was honestly irritating to have to turn on the phone and hold the volume down key until the phone went into silent mode. This is made worse by the fact that there are 25 (!) different volume levels. I was constantly struggling with the phone volume being too loud or too quiet. The hardware silent mode switch on the 3T and my work iPhone are brilliant and I don’t understand why every phone doesn’t have them. We all want to be able to quickly put our phones into silent mode, don’t we?

A scratch-prone glass back: Wireless charging honestly has zero appeal to me right now. Maybe in five years when everything has it and there’s a mature fast-charging standard everywhere I’ll change my mind, but I’d rather have a metal phone that can take a hit than a glass one that can’t. I don’t use cases; I’ll sometimes use a vinyl skin. I’ve never owned a glass-backed phone and all the videos/photos showing how easily the black Pixel 3 scratches is concerning. I purposefully bought the white one thinking it would hide wear and tear better over time; anyone who gets the black Pixel 3 had better put it into a case right away.

For me it’s just a bit too big, and slightly awkward to hold: I’m pretty average in height (six feet) and in hand size, but I simply find the Pixel 3 XL too big and I wasn’t able to get used to it. I use it without a case, so it’s as small as it’s going to get. In retrospect I should have gone for the Pixel 3 from a size perspective (145.6 x 68.2 x 7.9mm) since it’s smaller in size to the OnePlus 3T I’ve been using (152.7 x 74.7 x 7.4mm). The Pixel 3 XL, at 158 x 76.7 x 7.9mm, was something I couldn’t quite get used to. That surprised me since it’s only 2mm wider and 5mm taller than my 3T, but after two weeks it still felt awkward to hold.

The entire back vibrates at even medium volume: I’m usually holding my phone when watching a videos, and it’s shocking how badly the back of the Pixel 3 vibrates when the phone is at 50% volume or higher. It’s very distracting.

The screen doesn’t get very bright at 100%: the visual fidelity of the screen is excellent (see below), but when I’m out driving in daylight and the phone is at 100% brightness, it doesn’t get as bright as my OnePlus 3T so it’s less effective as a GPS tool. Maybe this is a power-saving limitation?

The speakers are just…OK: The HTC One M7 is one of my favourite phones of all time, and I remember what a dramatic improvement dual front-facing speakers were over any other phone on the market. I had similar hopes for this phone, but was a bit let down. Don’t get me wrong, they’re loud, but the sound quality is just…average. One is louder than the other, and it was immediately noticeable to me which led to a bit of unbalanced sound – and I swear I could hear some distortion as well. They absolutely sound better and louder than your average bottom-firing single speaker, but enough to justify the design compromises? I’m not so sure.

Notice that the much-maligned notch wasn’t on my list of dislikes? Yeah, it was huge, but I got used to it quite quickly and wouldn’t consider it a true negative of the phone. There were a few other little things – like how it charged slower than my OnePlus 3T, how tacky the mint green button looked, the boring lack of colourful choices, and how bizarrely the headphones fit – but no show-stoppers beyond my top ten.

The Top 5 Things I’ll Miss About the Pixel 3 XL

The camera: there’s no doubt that this is the best camera I’ve ever used in a smartphone. I’m a camera guy; image quality matters to me a great deal, and Google has done some really great work with this sensor and single front lens.

The screen: it has a really excellent screen. I’ve never owned a phone with a screen this high-resolution before, and I can absolutely see a difference in clarity on the Pixel 3 (1080 x 2160, 443 ppi) when compared to a 1080p screen at 5.5 inches (401 ppi). It’s a different tuning of AMOLED and was more subtle than normal, but I really liked it.

Pure Android: this is my first Pixel phone, and while I’ve experienced pure Android before in the now-defunct Google Play Edition phones (back in my HTC days), it’s been quite a while. I strongly prefer a stock Android experience and in that regard, the Pixel 3 is a pure delight. I find the garish bloatware on many Android phones frustrating, as I do the way they limit certain things – I can’t install the Google launcher on my wife’s OnePlus 6 for instance.

The wide angle selfie camera: it’s exceedingly rare for me to take a selfie, but when I do it’s with my wife or kids and being able to switch to a wider lens to capture more of the scene is fantastic. This is a long overdue feature.

Clever little Google Android features: there were a number of little things, including some very clever integrations between the Google assistant and the buttons on the included USB-C headphones, that were delightful. It really felt like Android 9 was designed for this phone.

One more thing…

After I’d already printed the RMA return form and made the decision to return the Pixel 3, I came across this excellent video from TLD that showed the results from a blind camera photo test video he published a day earlier. It reinforced my conclusions above: while the Pixel 3 has a superb camera, the OnePlus 6T came close in many scenarios, which was a pleasant surprise. There’s simply no way I can justify paying $447+ more for the Pixel 3 to get a better camera but half the RAM, half the storage, a worse fingerprint reader, etc…so, yes, the OnePlus 6T is the phone I am strongly leaning toward.

I’ve been quite impressed with my wife’s OnePlus 6 – other than some issues with Bluetooth after it received the Android 9 update it’s been a very solid, stable phone. The pictures it takes are fairly good – though I still think OnePlus is making a poor trade-off of shutter speed vs. ISO – and at $549 is offers tremendous hardware for the dollar. While I’m tempted to order one right away, I am going to delay my purchase for a couple of months in the hope that OnePlus has a red OnePlus 6T… ?

]]>http://www.jasondunn.com/ten-reasons-why-returned-pixel3xl/feed/05881Pixel 3 XL Halloween Photoshttp://www.jasondunn.com/pixel-3xl-halloween-photos/
http://www.jasondunn.com/pixel-3xl-halloween-photos/#respondFri, 02 Nov 2018 00:15:38 +0000http://www.jasondunn.com/?p=5899Continue reading Pixel 3 XL Halloween Photos]]>Last night I took my Pixel 3 XL out Halloween trick or treating with my kids and decided to see how well it handled real-world low-light conditions. This is without the forthcoming Night Sight, which by all accounts is extremely impressive. The images below are shot in regular camera mode, JPEG (I completely forgot about the raw mode option) with post-processing done in Lightroom. Lightroom noise reduction was not used on any photo. I could have posted the unretouched photos, but I always do some sort of post processing, either on my phone or on my computer, so this is real-world for me. I’ve also added some additional analysis on each photo for those that are curious, and linked to the full-sized JPEG (most are somewhat cropped, so none are original size).

The TLDR version? This Pixel 3 is the best camera I’ve ever used in a smartphone, and it has impressive optical image stabilization. It’s still a tiny sensor and subject to the same laws of physics as any other phone though, so it can’t work miracles. I’m generally impressed with how well it holds up at high ISOs that would make many phone images fall apart.

Above: this scene was quite dimly lit, despite what the adjusted image looks like, and is reasonably sharp given the camera was shooting at 1/15th of a second (which is below what I can properly hand-hold at without stabilization). It had to push to ISO 2728 though, which is why the cloth robe is noisy mush. It’s an OK picture if you don’t look too closely at the robe because other elements look decent.

Above: this was a challenging scene with a brightly lit doorway (cropped out) and a brightly lit inflated pumpkin guy. I exposed for the pumpkin guy by tapping on him, but the Pixel couldn’t stop overexposing the head and blew the highlights completely. I’m not surprised though, this was a very challenging scene that I think even my Nikon D750 would have struggled with. Lots of compression artifacts.

Above: one of my favourite photos of the night, this creepy zombie was in a dim part of a yard with indirect lighting. The Pixel 3 dropped to 1/7th of a second, which is extremely low for hand-held shooting, but still had to push to ISO 2134 so the detail falls apart. If you look at the full resolution image, it’s slightly out of focus – but a web sized version (what you see above) makes it look like the eyes are perfectly in focus (and the loss of detail matters less). I am impressed.

Above: this was directly lit by the orange light bulbs, and as such the exposure time was 1/15th of second at ISO 444. Because the ISO didn’t skyrocket like the other photos above, there’s some good detail left in the image and it’s reasonably in focus. The orange everywhere makes for some ugly compression artifacts at full size, but web-sized it looks pretty good.

Above: the street lights helped keep this at 1/15th of a second, but at ISO 806 the detail in this scene falls apart more than I’d expect. It looks OK web-sized, but at full resolution it’s a horrible mess of noise and compression artifacts. I’m a bit surprised it doesn’t look better. It’s one of the worst images of the night, which is surprising given it only went to ISO 806.

Above: one of the cleanest photos of the night, this LED-light skull gave off enough light to allow the Pixel to shoot at 1/25th of a second and ISO 389. The full size image looks quite good with very little noise (the inky black stays inky black) and there are no compression artifacts visible.

“We are prisoners of our own experience…it’s very, very difficult to dispel ignorance if you retain arrogance.”

– Sam Wilson, US Army (retired)

]]>http://www.jasondunn.com/prisoners-of-our-own-experience/feed/05784Star Wars Creations @ Legoland California 2018http://www.jasondunn.com/star-wars-legoland-california-2018/
http://www.jasondunn.com/star-wars-legoland-california-2018/#respondSun, 29 Jul 2018 00:26:52 +0000http://www.jasondunn.com/?p=5693We went to Legoland in June and among the more impressive Lego creations we saw were the incredible Star Wars creations. The amount of work that went into these must have been intense. Amazing to see! Here are all of my photos from this part of Legoland.

]]>http://www.jasondunn.com/star-wars-legoland-california-2018/feed/05693If Apple Was Being Honest With Their Site Navigationhttp://www.jasondunn.com/apple-honest-navigation/
http://www.jasondunn.com/apple-honest-navigation/#respondFri, 13 Jul 2018 03:34:40 +0000http://www.jasondunn.com/?p=5639Continue reading If Apple Was Being Honest With Their Site Navigation]]>My transition to being mostly Apple hardware has taken a few years, starting with an iPod Touch years ago. I still use an Android phone, but my desktop is an iMac, my laptop is a Macbook Pro, and I have three iPads in my home. My wife has inherited my trusty Dell XPS 13 though, so I still have access to a great Windows laptop. ?

I’ve decided that at this moment in my life, the benefits of what Apple offers is worth what I have to pay for it…but that doesn’t mean I can’t get a little grumpy as I watch how Apple updates – or, more accurately rarely updates their Mac product line. The iPad is, in my opinion, the best tablet you can buy today. The iPhone is an excellent product. But Apple’s Mac products? They alternate between stale to compromised, outdated to ridiculously expensive. And yet because they are the only way to get macOS, people who want to use that platform have no choice.

Above is what Apple’s site navigation looks like today. They add the word “New” in orange when there’s a product update. What would it look like though if they were a little more honest? This. ?

I’d created the graphic below months ago, so wouldn’t you know it today was the day that Apple finally put 8th gen Intel CPUs in their Touch Bar-based Macbooks and updated a few other key things (more max RAM and SSD options). The new Macbooks might have better battery life, and they might have fewer keyboard problems. We’ll see!

If you’re a Mac user, what do you wish Apple would update next?

]]>http://www.jasondunn.com/apple-honest-navigation/feed/05639AudioEngine A2+ Speakers in High-Gloss Red Reviewedhttp://www.jasondunn.com/audioengine-a2-speakers-in-high-gloss-red-reviewed/
http://www.jasondunn.com/audioengine-a2-speakers-in-high-gloss-red-reviewed/#respondSat, 30 Jun 2018 21:59:18 +0000http://www.jasondunn.com/?p=4928Continue reading AudioEngine A2+ Speakers in High-Gloss Red Reviewed]]>I have a long history with AudioEngine speakers; I first reviewed their A5 speakers back in 2007, and their A2 speakers in 2008. I’ve owned their A5+ speakers since 2011, having only recently retired them from use last year, and not by choice; we put a bigger TV in a spot where a soundbar was needed in front of the TV because we needed all the width of the mantle for the TV. The point is, I have a deep fondness for AudioEngine products so I had high expectations as I excitedly unpacked the box with the A2+ powered speakers. I have a tremendous for products that are red, so one of the reasons why I asked to review the A2+ speakers was because they game in this glorious red colour:

The speakers are available in satin black, high-gloss white, and the above high-gloss red. The photo above is slightly deceiving: it looks brighter in my photos than in the normal lighting of my office. Because it’s so glossy, the colour pops depending on how much direct lighting they are in. Tucked beside and behind my iMac, they are a deep, dark, blood red.

In virtually every review of speakers or headphones, the writer will trot out obscure artists and tracks, trying to impress the reader with their musical pedigree. I shall do no such thing, and simply say that with the variety of music I listen to regularly from these speakers – pop, rock, a capella, country, orchestral scores – I am extremely impressed with how great the A2+ speakers sound. You’re not getting booming bass here without hooking up a sub-woofer – that’s a matter of physics, and these are small speakers – but when cranked up, these tiny powerhouses will move some serious air (you’ll actually feel wind blowing strongly on you at higher volumes) and they sound quite full for their size.

Volume wise, listening at four pips of volume on my iMac has the speakers at about 62dB (measured with a sound meter at 16 inches away). It’s what I consider a “comfortably loud” volume level – not quiet background, volume you can actually hear and appreciate the music. At 50% volume (8 pips) they’ll hit 84db. At 100% volume (16 pips) they’ll hit 105db – a volume level I find painful being so close and would never use, but if you’re trying to full a medium-sized room at a party, you may need this volume. At max volume they hold up without distortion on every song I tested them with, and while I won’t “song drop” I tested a live cover of “Superstition” with some heavy bass and at 100% volume it was smooth and (OK, OK, check the bass solo at 4:08 here).

Alright, here’s the breakdown…

The good

The USB-based audio is rock solid and clean – I’ve had zero drop outs or issues…once I connected them directly to my iMac. When they were connected to an Amazon Basics USB hub, I’d hear bits of static every now and then. That same Amazon hub died on my after only a year, so I blame the hub and not the speakers.

It’s fantastic to be able to control the full range of volume from my iMac – these are first speakers I’ve ever had that have used USB audio.

They’ve increased the shielding so the A2+ speakers don’t pick up RF interference from nearby phones (my A2 speakers are extremely susceptible to this problem). The only interference I’ve heard was when I put my WiFi router about four inches away from the speakers. I moved it 10 inches away and all is well.

Incredible build quality means they will last for years (I have working AudioEngine speakers from 10+ years ago).

Multiple inputs and outputs makes for flexibility with multiple device (RCA input, RCA output, 3.5mm input, and USB output). They can be paired with a Mac or Windows computer, a record player, some TVs, a phone or MP3 player, etc.

The bad

$249 is a significant investment – these are not budget speakers in any way, and AudioEngine rarely has significant sales – but see above about how long these are likely to last and consider them a long-term investment.

There’s no optical input if that’s something you need.

They might not work properly through a USB hub, so you’ll need a free USB port on your computer.

They make a somewhat loud “pop” when I reboot my iMac – I’d assume some initialization of the USB audio.

The rear-mounted volume knob can be awkward to get at depending on where your speakers are located (and this is only a negative if you’re using the analog inputs – if you’re using them via USB, you can control the audio via computer).

If you’ve got a laptop with only USB-C ports you’ll need an adaptor or different cable.

The summary

I am exceedingly happy with my purchase of these speakers, and with free shipping and a 30 day evaluation period, these are easy to evaluate and decide if you want to keep them. They look glorious, they sound glorious, and while $249 is a significant investment in a world of $50 2.1 speaker systems, they are a worthwhile investment that will give you great audio for years. I reccomend them highly!

]]>http://www.jasondunn.com/audioengine-a2-speakers-in-high-gloss-red-reviewed/feed/04928Marvel Avenger’s S.T.A.T.I.O.N Iron Man War Machine Wallpaperhttp://www.jasondunn.com/iron-man-war-machine-wallpaper/
http://www.jasondunn.com/iron-man-war-machine-wallpaper/#respondSat, 07 Apr 2018 02:00:20 +0000http://www.jasondunn.com/?p=5511Continue reading Marvel Avenger’s S.T.A.T.I.O.N Iron Man War Machine Wallpaper]]>Last week I went to an exhibit in Las Vegas called the Marvel Avenger’s S.T.A.T.I.O.N. If you’re a Marvel movie geek like I am, it was a lot of fun (and I’ll post photos in a bit). While there though I took a photo of Iron Man’s War Machine armour used in the movies – the real prop – and it turned out so well I knocked out the remainder of the background and turned it into 5K (5120 x 2880 pixel) desktop wallpaper. I optimized it for macOS but it should work pretty well on any device (I have it as my lock screen wallpaper on my iPad). The photo was taken with my Sony RX-100 Mark IV, and I did a bit of Photoshop work to make the background fully black. The original doesn’t look much different than this though – the blue lighting was how the armour was shown. Enjoy!